Rain Barrels, Cistern or Well? (Explained)

Our friends at Pure Life of Living, have shared with us this article in which they discuss off grid water system solutions, which one is best for you; is it rain barrels? Cistern? Well? You will get an idea of what might be best suited for your homestead after watching this video.

Having a reliable water source is incredibly important for anyone, but it is especially important for anyone trying to live more simply or go off grid like us. If we have learned anything from our time on our off grid homestead, it’s that there isn’t just one right way to do anything. Finding a water system that fits the specific needs of a property takes time, research and a careful evaluation of the needs of that property going forward. Though we haven’t established our permanent water system yet, we think that the things we have learned so far are invaluable and could be a lot of help to you too.

At this point in our homesteading journey while we’re living in an rv, we are using 5 gallon water jugs that we load into our car and fill up in town (learn about that here). This system works well for us because we researched the size of these gallons ahead of time and decided on ones that are the right proportions and weight for us to handle comfortably. This works great as a beginning system while we get our homestead established, but they won’t be practical in the long term. This post is all about the options we’ve explored as we search for the right long term water solution for us.

Rain Water Harvesting

When researching water systems it is important to look at the price per gallon of various systems. In most cases, nothing can beat the price per gallon of rain water, making a rain barrel catchment system very appealing. When we first arrived on our property we were planning to collect rain water off of tarp roofs around the property and use it in our home. We even got big blue rain barrels to start the project.

However, a few experiments proved to us that they would NOT be right for our property for two main reasons.